We left our horses behind as we hiked up a mountain. Captain Noel, Flare, and I were the only ones who went while the other rangers waited with our horses. The reason for that was simple: Captain Noel and Flare didn’t want to scare Coco by looking too hostile. After all, you wouldn’t bring an army if you were just going to talk to your friend, right?

I was worried because if we had to fight a dragon, we would definitely be outmatched. However, Flare and Captain Noel didn’t seem to be that worried. They must think that they could reason with the dragon.

From what I’ve read both in this world and my previous world, fighting dragons was dangerous and required a group of people. I don’t know if just the 3 of us were enough.

An eerie feeling overcame me. It was the same feeling with the wolves and Theodore.... What the heck was this? Could it be the mysterious energy that Artia was investigating?

We are heading to the direction where I was feeling that eerie feeling. If I was right, there was a creature who had the mysterious energy over there.

“Lemme guess. The dragon is right there, isn’t she?” I pointed in a direction.

“How did you know?” Flare asked.

“Can’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?” Captain Noel asked.

“An eerie energy is coming from that direction.”

Captain Noel and Flare looked at each other. Flare closed her eyes and Captain Noel looked around.

“We don’t feel anything... Maybe you’re just too nervous”, Captain Noel said.

“Don’t worry. We can reason with Coco. Maybe the town did something bad without knowing about it”, Flare added.

That was strange... I may be nervous but I don’t think I was imagining things. Could they not feel that weird energy? It’s the same feeling that I felt around those wolves... If I was correct, then the dragon must be involved with that energy.

An orange object could be seen in the distance. Upon closer look, it wasn’t an object. It was a dragon. And I could feel the strange energy deep inside her. I could feel her trying to fight the energy. For some reason, I knew that she was in deep pain.

We approached the dragon and she looked at us. She was quite huge and had claws that looked sharp enough to cut me into 2 pieces. The rangers said that the dragon could breathe fire so I had to be wary of where her mouth was pointing. According to the rangers, the dragon’s flames were hot enough to melt stone bricks. So that meant her flames could go as hot as 1500 Celsius and come out of her mouth to melt me.

“Coco! It’s me, Noel!” Captain Noel shouted at her.

“N....Noel?” she asked.

“Yeah... It’s me. Flare’s also here... We’ve come to talk!”

“T...Talk?”

Somehow, I felt there was something wrong. The strange energy was definitely inside her but she seemed to be fighting it... If she was able to hold on, then why did she attack a town?

How did she even get the mysterious energy? Theodore took a pill before that energy consumed him. Did the dragon eat anything strange?

“Why did you attack a town? Did they do something bad?” Flare asked.

“M...Me?... Attack?” the dragon asked.

Kill them, a voice said in my head.

My stomach twisted and an even stronger eerie feeling overcame my body. I could feel cold sweat running down my face. The energy inside the dragon got stronger and she roared. This was bad!

“Captain Noel! Look out!” I shouted.

The dragon raised her claws and swung it at Captain Noel. However, she just caught it and stopped it using her own strength.

For some reason, I could feel that something was giving commands to the dragon. Could someone be able to place the mysterious energy in a creature? It was probably not a coincidence that there were also wolves with that energy which were in this area. Was someone giving out that energy to random creatures? But why would they do that?

However, it was no time to think about stuff. The dragon just attacked so she was definitely hostile. What should we do? We couldn’t possibly fight a dragon with just the three of us.

“Coco... You seem to be out of yourself. Also, did you get a bit stronger?”, Captain Noel said.

Coco opened her mouth and tried to breathe fire but Flare shot an arrow. The arrow hit the dragon’s face and exploded.

Captain Noel jumped up to an impossible height and punched Coco’s face. The sheer force of her blow caused the dragon to be knocked away...

I heard that Captain Noel was strong but I didn’t expect her to actually blow a dragon away. She didn’t even do magic so I guess her muscle strength must be extraordinary.

“Is she even human?” I muttered.

There was another source of the strange energy. It could be found a few meters away from us... I had a bad feeling about it and since Captain Noel and Flare were busy with the dragon, I decided to investigate it alone.

When I got closer, I saw a man wearing black robes. His entire face was covered with bandages and a wooden staff was on his hand. The aura he was emitting was scary. It was like staring at a stranger who was in the dark. There was a feeling of uneasiness creeping on me since I didn’t know anything about that man.

“I know you’re there. Get out”, he said.

I walked out of my hiding spot. His eyes were unnerving. It was like he could see everything inside me. I gathered my courage and unsheathed my kris sword.

“A knight from Westa... This would be a good experiment”, he said and pointed his staff at me.

Red orbs of light were circling around his staff and one by one, they launched at me. The orbs exploded when they came in contact with the ground after I dodged them.

Those orbs were fast but they traveled in a straight line so I could predict their movements. Temma was right. Fighting in close range was harder than avoiding ranged attacks. I could predict the orbs’ paths and avoid them in time.

My enemy was a mage and for some reason, he also has that strange energy inside of him. If he had that strange energy, then why wasn’t he rampaging? Were the effects different per creature? What race was he from?

More red orbs appeared on his staff but I didn’t wait for them to go for me. I charged at the man. Mages spend most of their time researching magic so they relied on long-ranged attacks. They weren’t that good in close combat. I could win if I get close.

A red rope-like magic came from the ground and wrapped around my legs. The orbs were on their way to me and I couldn’t avoid them in time. And so I had no other choice but to hit the orbs with my sword like baseball.

I then cut the rope-like magic wrapped around me and I continued my charge to the bandaged man. He didn’t even attempt to run away but instead, he charged at me. I swung my sword and his staff blocked it.

Weren’t mages supposed to be weak in close-ranged combat? They were supposed to have no time left for training their reflexes or even their muscles since they were too busy with researching magic. How come this guy was strong?

“You lack killing intent. Are you truly a knight?” he asked.

He pushed me back with his staff and more red orbs appeared. The orbs attacked me but I either blocked them with my sword or avoided them.

It felt odd. I already experienced facing someone gushing out with killing intent so I could tell that the bandaged man in front of me wasn’t really serious. He said that he would experiment with me.... Something was not adding up.

“What are you after?” I asked him.

“Our goals are beyond a mere knight’s understanding”, he answered and a magic circle appeared on the spot I was standing on.

Chains wrapped around me and I couldn’t move. This was bad! When did he set up a magic circle?

The bandaged man walked towards me casually. Even if he was close, I couldn’t even attack him.

“I’ve already assessed your combat potential. Let’s see how you would improve”, he unwrapped the bandages on his hand which revealed an arm oozing with darkness.

His arm was ringing alarm bells in my mind. I could feel a massive concentration of the strange energy on his arm. Artia said that the strange energy made monsters more aggressive. Could the experiment he was talking about was this?

He touched my forehead, “Release yourself.”